


Prowl of the Marauders

by Lorde_Shadowz



Series: Marauders' Heir [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus Harry Potter, Escaped Sirius Black, F/M, Gen, New Marauders in Golden Trio Era (Harry Potter), Parental Peter Pettigrew, Redeemed Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape is So Done, Sirius Black Free from Azkaban
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26505049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorde_Shadowz/pseuds/Lorde_Shadowz
Summary: Growing up with a Marauder (and the reluctant Dursleys) gives Harry some important skills...which he will certainly need when he sets foot in Hogwarts. Not to mention the fact that he is the youngest wizard ever to become an animagus...
Series: Marauders' Heir [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926973
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59
Collections: Harry Potter





	1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter had a secret. A four-footed, patchy-furred secret. For as long as he could remember, he'd had a very special pet. Admiral didn't look like much; even Harry admitted that. Aunt Petunia was certainly not happy with him keeping a rat in her nice, clean, _normal_ house. But if anyone were to think that Harry cared about what Aunt Petunia thought, they would have a different idea coming to them. Besides, Admiral was so, so much more than a rat, not that anyone knew that. No one but Harry, that is. His primary school teachers laughed and told him he was "creative" when he wrote about the adventures that he and Admiral had had together, but, little did they know, they were far from imaginary.

Sometimes, after a long day of cleaning and cooking for his relatives (helped out just a little by Admiral's magic) he would sneak out of his perfectly ordinary house at Privet Drive with Admiral in tow and go out wandering the streets of the town, seeing all sorts of strange things. Sometimes he would go further, even, into London, out later than any ordinary boy should, and see the city at night, ride the underground though a great warren of tunnels (spending all his pocket change, and the rolled up bills that Admiral would occasionally bring him in his mouth, in the process) or go to the little all-night take-away places with their paper lanterns and bamboo chopsticks, always making sure to save Admiral some. Sometimes he followed Admiral when Dudley, his ape-like cousin, was trying to chase him down and beat him up with his gang; Admiral always knew what to do. He would run down alleyways, always making sure to be slow enough that Harry could follow, and show him places he could hide, places that Dudley and his friends couldn't get to, and wait it out with him while Dudley and his dumb friends blundered on by.

Other times, when he had been sent to the cupboard for a day, or even longer, Admiral would squeeze under the door, impossibly thin, and return with food and crayons and paper, or sometimes some of Dudley's elaborate toy soldiers, generals and captains and tanks and even horsemen, and Harry would plan out battles on the unvarnished wood of his cupboard floor, while Admiral nudged the soldiers of the "opposing side" into place, so they could have make-believe wars. Sometimes, too, after a particularly hard day when Aunt Petunia had punished him for something he didn't do (like when Dudley spilled his ice cream on the keyboard of his computer and said that Harry had done it, earning his Aunt's ire) Admiral would have left him a chocolate or a toffee on his pillow when he returned to the cupboard, or sometimes even a candy that was magical, making him float or breathe fire! Then, too, though his family only gave him the thinnest of blankets, Admiral somehow managed to make them soft and fluffy whenever his Aunt's back was turned. And Harry just _knew_ that he'd been the one to make his cupboard larger on the inside than on the outside.

In fact, the rat was more of a parent than his aunt and uncle had ever been, and he never left his side, even sneaking into his backpack when he first began going to school. No matter how much his relatives complained that the rat was "freaky" and set traps (or, in Aunt Petunia's case, swung her frying pan at the poor animal if she ever saw it) Admiral would always come back when he needed him. And no matter how much his teachers and the kids at school gently (or not so gently, in the case of the other kids) said that magic was not real, Harry knew they were wrong. If magic wasn't real, how come Admiral could _fly_?

When he was seven years old, Admiral showed him something even more marvelous, something more amazing even than magic. He was not, actually, a rat. That had been the best day of his life. Harry had never exactly been treated well, but on that particular afternoon, Uncle Vernon had first tried to get physical. That had been the day that his Uncle Vernon had first attempted to hit him, really hit him, not just swing a hand at him. Admiral had jumped off of his shoulder, hissing ferociously, and landed right in front of him. Uncle Vernon had ignored the rat, except for a mutter of "freaky vermin", and swung at Harry again, catching him on the side of the head. That was, he would have...had Admiral not transformed into a person in front of him, catching the blow on his own jaw. Uncle Vernon recoiled.

"Who the devil are you?" he spat, raising his fist again. "I'll call the police!"

"And tell them what, that your nephew's rat is a wizard? They'll send you off to the loony bin!" The man who had been a rat sneered, which fit his pointy features very well. "Listen here, I've let well enough alone before, so as not to cause a fuss, because I get that it's hard to raise a kid who isn't your own, but for Merlin's sake, that's _enough_! You are _not_ allowed to hit Harry. As a matter of fact, your son already has his own room; you can give the guest room to Harry and clean out your son's toy room when your idiotic sister comes to visit. And you can start feeding the boy right, and get him actual glasses; there's freaking standardized healthcare- you don't even need to shell out for them! And while you're at it, can you _please_ stop with the traps and rat poison? My day is hard enough being a wanted criminal!"

Vernon's face bugged out, his face turning an unattractive shade of puce.

"Right. Good." The man turned to Harry. "You ok?"

Harry just stared at him, finally managing "You're a person?"

"Admiral" smiled, face softening. "Yes Harry. My name's Peter, and I'm one of your godfathers."

Harry's seven-year old mind decided that this was ok, then. He didn't even register the fact that the guy was supposedly a criminal. "You knew my parents?" he asked at last, in a very small voice.

For some reason, Peter looked kind of upset at this, but he said only "yes Harry, I did."

"Can- can you tell me about them?"

"Yes, of course. C'mon, lets go get an ice cream while _this_ prat," he said in a slightly more dangerous voice, looking at his uncle, "cleans out that room for you so that you can have a proper place to sleep."

And so they did.

From that day on, Uncle Peter didn't always have to stay in rat form anymore. He did when the Dursleys- his aunt and uncle's family- had company over, but at other times they would explore London together, both humans, or in the evening in Harry's room Peter would help him go over his homework or show him spells with the stick thing he used to do magic- a wand, Uncle Peter called it, or tell him stories about his parents: his mother had been the best witch in their grade when they'd gone to school, and his dad had been an auror- magic constable. One of his parents had apparently been a werewolf, so his father, his Uncle Sirius (whom he had never met) and his Uncle Peter had learned how to turn into animals so they could run around the woods with him every full moon without being bit. Not only that, but apparently his father had also been the best in the school at Quidditch, the magic sport- played on actual brooms that flew- and Uncle Sirius had made a magic interactive map of the school they had gone to! Harry lapped it up, and begged to learn magic too, but Uncle Peter would only teach him the charm that made light, lumos, saying that he shouldn't do too much magic until he had a wand. Apparently you had to be eleven to get a wand. Harry had sulked a little, but Uncle Peter wouldn't back down.

When Harry was eight, he had his first birthday party that was more than a few bites of stolen candy and socks given to him jokingly by his dearest relations.

Harry had been in awe. Uncle Peter had bullied the Dursleys into letting him use their kitchen and had whipped up a cake, then conjured streamers and sparkly things all over Harry's room, sent out an invitation to Harry's only school friend, a boy called David Lassel, and threw an impromptu party, complete with candles on the cake that turned every color of the rainbow and actual presents. The Dursleys decided to have lunch out.

When Harry was nine, Uncle Peter began teaching him magic. Real, actual magic. It wasn't anything big- Harry still didn't have his wand, but Peter taught him how to brew magic potions on the kitchen stove (Aunt Petunia was horrified, especially when one of the concoctions burnt and sprayed blue liquid all over her kitchen) and taught him how to write with a quill, and how to do little things without a wand (like turn Dudley's hair green; Harry had loved that) and had even magically taken him to a forest in Wales, to feed the bat-winged horses with Hamburger Helper; thestrals, Uncle Peter called them. He also brought some magical history and school books for Harry to read- the pictures actually _moved_!

When Harry was ten years old, however, he asked Uncle Peter, for the first time, how his parents had died.

* * *

Peter Pettigrew was the happiest he had ever been in his life. It was a beautiful winter evening, and the Dursleys had been "persuaded" to take an early holiday, so he and Harry had the whole place to themselves, and Harry was jubilant. They'd made Christmas cookies shaped like lilies and reindeer (Peter hadn't wanted to make the latter, but Harry deserved to be able to remember his father in a good way) and glazed them with food safe magical frosting that changed colors and sparkled, listening some old Christmas records that Peter had found somewhere at a rummage sale. Now, however, they were sitting by the Dursleys' electric fireplace, practicing easy spells on Harry's marshmallow-filled chocolate and talking about inconsequential things.

"Uncle Peter?"

Peter looked up from his own cup of hot chocolate. "Yes Harry?" Oh, Merlin, it was so wonderful to be here, to be accepted so unconditionally. However much Peter knew he didn't deserve it, staying here with Harry beat a cell in Azkaban, even if Harry would hate him when he learned the truth.

"How did my parents die?"

Peter froze, and the mug of hot chocolate which he had been levitating for Harry's delight crashed unceremoniously to the table.

"Uncle Peter, are you ok?"

Oh, Merlin, those simple, innocently-asked questions nearly undid Peter. 'Are you ok?' When had he ever been? He was nothing but a rat, after all, with all the characteristics of him. He had spied, he had killed, he had led Lily and her prat of a husband to their deaths. He was the reason Harry was an orphan, the reason that he had been sent away like a parcel to his worst family members. And now he would have to tell his ten year old adopted godson that he had been the one to get his parents killed. "I...I'm fine, Harry," he managed, cleaning up the spilled hot chocolate with one swipe of his wand. How could he phrase this so as not to sound like a complete and total monster without lying? "I...well...I suppose I'd have to start with the Dark Lord."

"The Dark Lord?"

"Not all witches and wizards are good, Harry, and he was one of the ones who was evil. He wanted to rule Britain and kill everyone who disagreed or who he didn't like. And he marked his followers on the arm with a tattoo of a skull and a snake." Peter hesitated. Better get it done quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. And he drew up his sleeve, revealing the faint mark left there. Harry's eyes widened.

"You were one of his followers?"

"Yes," Peter replied, lowering his head in shame. "I didn't know how bad he was until he already branded me as one of his followers." He could tell that Harry had something to say about that, but he went on quickly, wanting to postpone Harry's anger as long as possible. "Then...then it was too late." He paused, thinking.

"Oh!" was Harry's soft response. "So this guy k-killed my parents? Did you- did you do anything?" Harry asked insecurely.

Peter closed his eyes. "Y-yes. It's not as simple as just that he killed them; he killed a lot of people, Harry, magical and not. But one night a Death Eater- those were his followers-"

Harry screwed up his face, even while still listening raptly.

"Brought him news of a prophecy having to do with a baby born at the end of July."

Harry's eyes widened, figuring it out. _"Me?"_

"Yes Harry," Peter said softly. "There were some others it could mean, but the Dark Lord went after you in particular." This next part was the part that was making Peter feel sick to relate. "Now, your parents knew about this, of course- a man named Severus Snape had turned spy when he heard that your mum and you were in trouble- and so they did all sorts of things to protect themselves, updating the wards and such. There's a very old and powerful spell called the Fidelius that makes anyone who's ever heard of something forget it at once, except for one person called the "Secret Keeper", and so James- your dad- cast it over your house, so that only the person who was the Secret Keeper would know where it was. He picked me as Secret Keeper. I-I t-told him to pick Sirius- _heck_ Sirius told him to pick Sirius- but he made it me. I don't know why. He didn't know that I...was a Death Eater, of course, but Sirius would have been a better option anyway, since I can't fight that well."

Harry was listening to all of this, watching him with wide, nervous green eyes. "You told him where my parents were?"

Peter shuddered. "Y-yes. The Dark Lord...has ways of making you do what he wants, and they're...rather painful." Understatement of the century. Calling a cruciatus "rather painful" was like calling Mcgonagall "a little firm sometimes". Still, he was _not_ going to tell a child about torture in detail; no one needed to know about that. "I ended up telling him, and so he-" his breath hitched; he'd never ever shared this with anyone, since he consorted primarily with muggles, and the occasional wizard (under glamors). "-So he came to your house. He killed your parents, but for some reason, when he cast the killing curse on you, it just...bounced off. Then it hit him and he died, serve him right." Peter stared at the table. "You were supposed to go to Sirius, but Dumbledore sent you here, Merlin only knows why. I...came along with. I'd met Petunia, and she was always spiteful, so I didn't want her to h-hurt you."

There was a long silence.

"I'm s-sorry," Peter said at last, waiting for the blow. If only he had had just a few more years, he'd- he'd what, have converted to boy to such an extent that he wouldn't care that Peter had gotten his parents killed? Maybe lying to the boy for a few more years would soften the blow? Merlin, he was disgusting. He _was_ a rat, after all.

"It's ok, Uncle Peter."

Peter's head snapped up so fast that he might have gotten whiplash. "What?"

"It's ok. I...I'm sad, but I don't remember them. You're _here_ , though aren't you? And you made sure that the Dursleys were nice."

Peter didn't know what to say to that, not in the slightest. He settled for pulling the boy in for a hug and pretended that his eyes were not stinging suspiciously. He didn't deserve this, not in the slightest. But he would take it. Oh, Merlin, he would take it. Did that make him more of a monster? Probably, but he was too weak to do anything but take it, wanting to stay as long as Harry needed him, as long as he let them. And, deep inside, he swore never to let Harry down again.


	2. Chapter 2

It was on the Easter of the year that Harry was to go to Hogwarts that Peter Pettigrew discovered that his young ward could speak to snakes. His "family" had gone to church (without taking "the freak", not that Peter would have let them, knowing from his own experiences that, while muggle churches themselves were usually fine, just places where the ambient power of the universe was so strong that the muggles could feel it, sometimes priests and pastors would try to exorcise the demons from Wizarding children, which, if the wizard was powerful enough and the event was traumatic, an obscurus could form. Peter himself had only escaped that fate because he was a weak wizard, and even so, for long periods of time after the event, he had been too scared even to say the word "magic".

But in any case, since Harry had not wanted or been allowed to go with his "dearest" relations, Peter had taken Harry down to the little park near No. 4 Privet Dr. on Magnolia Crescent to play, since he didn't want to risk exhausting his juvenile magical core by learning and practicing too much wandless magic and they were both tired of rereading Peter's few books and the Dursleys' stacks of nonfiction and old newspapers (the only fiction in the whole house besides Cliff Notes for whatever Dudley was supposed to have read for his classes were Aunt Petunia's furtively-read bodice rippers, which Peter refused to let Harry read).

Harry did not have many toys (though Peter had certainly bought as many as he could with the sporadic bursts of muggle money he could get by doing muggle odd jobs like he had in the old days; while the Wizengamot has railroaded Sirius into Azkaban, the goblins had never quite accepted the supposed evidence of Black's betrayal, and so had blocked Peter's accounts. Not that he didn't deserve it, but it made it rather harder than it would have been to get the galleons necessary for keeping up his disguise in the Wizarding World and buying things for Harry) and so the boy played make-believe games with sticks and rocks and little grass flowers, as well as the wood chips in the playground. Soon, he had disappeared from sight, but Peter wasn't worried: he had cast a monitoring charm on the boy, and would thus know if he was too far away or had gotten into any sort of trouble.

Not ten minutes later, however, Harry came running back to him. "Uncle Peter, Uncle Peter, look!"

Peter obliged him. When he saw what Harry was trying to show him though, his mouth went dry. "Um. Harry? Y-you might want to put that down. Slowly."

"It's ok, Uncle Peter, she said she wouldn't hurt me. Or you," he added, as the triangle-headed snake hissed.

"Sh-she _said_?" Peter repeated dumbly, a drop of cold sweat trickling slowly down his neck. "What do you mean 'she said'?" He hoped to Merlin that Harry hadn't said what he thought he'd said. _Please_ let it just be some sort of misunderstanding!

"Oh, yes! She's quite nice, actually! Her name is Hssshashassss." Without more adieu, he began to hiss happily to the horrid creature, sounding rather like a juvenile- and sane- version of the Dark Lord. Even more so when the snake hissed back.

Peter tensed up, ready to run, ready to grab the little beast and drag it off his charge if necessary, but somehow not able to move.

"Are you ok? Hssshashassss promised not to bite you..."

"I..." Peter was finding it very difficult to speak, especially as his muscles were tensed to the point of pain and his heart was beating so very fast that his chest thronged. "I've been better."

Harry hissed something very quickly to the snake, put it down, and turned back to Peter. "You don't like snakes?" He asked, innocently. "Or did I do something wrong? I thought that everyone could talk to snakes!"

Peter did his best to wrangle his features into something vaguely normal. "Harry, my animagus form is a rat," he said, trying to put off telling him the inevitable. "That thing could eat me in one bite." He paused. He would have to tell Harry at some point, but this was a little young. All the same, it would probably be best if his young ward knew to keep his parseltongue hidden when he went to Hogwarts; it would _not_ be good if someone, say Dumbledore (or, Merlin forbid, Snivellus) found out that he was a snake speaker, and the public would probably crucify him. "And no. Not everyone can talk to snakes. The skill is called parseltongue, and someone who can speak it is called a parselmouth. It can be learned, but it is usually inherited, through two main lines: Slytherin, and (much more rarely) Patil. It can also be found in some Greek and Indian families." He paused, wishing there was some way he could think of to soften the blow. "As far as I know, the only other natural parselmouth in Britain is the Dark Lord himself."

Harry paled. "So You-Know-Who can talk to snakes too?"

"Yes. Being a parselmouth does not make you evil, but some people think that it does, and so it is probably a good idea not to speak parseltongue around other wizards who do not already know, unless you completely trust them."

"But how can I tell if I'm talking parseltongue? It just sounds like English to me..."

Peter shivered. "I can't help you there. It sounds like hissing to me, just the hissing of a snake."

"You don't like it." Harry didn't have to be a psychoanalyst to have figured that one out.

Peter nodded uneasily.

"Do you not like me, too?"

Peter was horrified at that, however. "Harry, I don't care if you were the Dark Lord's long lost love child, I would still like you, child. It's just...parseltongue does not recall happy memories for me; I was having a flashback." That last had not been strictly true, but Peter was hardly going to tell his ward, who had fragile enough self-esteem as it was, that he had been, even for the briefest of moments, terrified of him.

"Ok then. So if it's just you...would you be ok with me talking to Hssshashassss? She said that she would enjoy being my friend..."

Peter hesitated. This was probably not at all a good idea, but Harry looked so happy... "If she will consent to me putting a ward on her so that she cannot bite humans unless they've hurt her first, I won't mind," he said, not in the least trusting the word of a snake when it was his Harry's life on the line.

Harry held a hissing conference with the snake, and then broke into a broad grin. "She says yes!" Then Harry (to Peter's secret alarm) hugged both him and the snake. Peter hesitantly cast the ward, making the snake a bit of a safer pet, and then Harry let her slither up his arm until she was dangerously close to his neck. It was all Peter could do not to drag her off by the tail; a venomous snake so close to Harry's face! But Harry was smiling and chattering away to the snake, and Peter could not deny the boy a pet, as long as it couldn't hurt him, and the ward had insured that the snake could not. He just hoped this was not a terrible mistake. And how, in Merlin's name, could the Boy-Who-Lived, child of a Light scion and a muggleborn and the sweetest little thing in the world (ok, he was biased, but seriously!) be a parselmouth? Peter could not think of any legitimate way that the boy could have inherited it, which scared him even more; his rat senses didn't like it, and they were rarely ever wrong.

Peter stared off into the distance, lost in thought, only vaguely keeping an eye on Harry to make sure that that horrible little creature behaved. The only ways he could think of for Harry to be a parselmouth were that Lily was not actually a muggleborn or that there was some discrepancy in the Potter family tree. Or...here a shiver ran down his spine, as a dementor had ran its fleshless finger down it-what if Harry was not a Potter at all? Or what if it was some souvenir, for lack of a better word, from the Dark Lord's defeat? Those last two scared him spitless, and he realized- for the first time- that he had never actually taken Harry to get looked at at St. Mungo's. Another thing that he would have to take care of before Harry went to Hogwarts for his first year...

Right. He had a _very_ long list of things that they would have to do once Harry got his Hogwarts letter and was to reenter Wizarding society. Take Harry to St. Mungo's for shots and a checkup (something that he couldn't do before because he was not the boy's legal guardian, although he definitely hoped to change that if Harry was ok with that). Check in at Gringotts and make sure Harry's accounts and properties (and perhaps his own, if the goblins would let him) were ok; maybe even see about checking James and Lily's wills. Make sure that Harry was protected in all ways possible: try to buy him one of those rings to prevent mind instructions- Peter did not exactly want to come out of hiding, even if Black had been blamed for his crimes, and plus, Harry deserved to be able to keep his secrets safe, and possibly hire or buy a house elf to protect him when Peter couldn't (Lily had made James free all the original Potter elves). Get him an emergency portkey (which, as long as the destination was a private property) was quite legal, and make sure he had a spare wand (which was actually not so legal, but there was a loophole for orphans or high-profile children, of which Harry was both) make sure he had some sort of amulet to detect poisons, and so on. And then...a sudden thought struck him, and Peter gasped.

There was one other thing he could do so that Harry had an unexpected advantage over possible kidnappers or rogue Death Eaters. An animagus form. It was very difficult, but the younger a wizard was, the easier it was, and it helped that Harry would have a teacher who had gone through the ordeal without official counseling. Besides, it was speculated (although no one had ever confirmed this) that wizards who were too young to use a wand yet would find the process much easier than most, because their magic was not yet flowing in the specific channels necessary if you were going to use a wand. Peter didn't even have to register him, due to the Anonymity Act, (something which Peter would have loved to know when he was young) which stated that a wizard under seventeen years who became an animagus did not have to reveal their form (although they were pressured to do so at their legal majority), because of the instances of accidental or natural animagitism, which meant that a wizard could become an animagus without warning and without ritual preparation in the right circumstances. The legal system had decided that since an animagus form ( _supposedly_ ) couldn't be attained the ordinary manner without many years of practice, it was not right to punish a young wizard for accidental magic.

"Harry?" Peter asked after a long moment of contemplation.

"Huh?" the boy asked intelligently, still concentrating on stroking that blasted snake.

"How would you feel about learning how to be an animagus?"

* * *

The rest of the time before Harry's Hogwarts letter arrived was mostly devoted to preparing the boy for what he would face when he had to reenter the wizarding world, as well as trying to achieve his animagus form. The latter, however, was truly astonishing in its progress. After the traditional ritual of keeping a mandrake leaf in one's mouth all month, (and Merlin, that leaf was so sour when he was finally allowed to spit it out) Harry was to sit and meditate, and then would commence the difficult work of self(or in this case, assisted) transfiguration into whatever form that he perceived during his meditation session. Once he could transfigure his whole body wandlessly, he would have to take a potion to cement it. It all sounded very daunting to the boy, but if Uncle Peter and two of his friends had done it without adult help, it should be easier for Harry, with Uncle Peter by his side.

The first meditation session he had, he couldn't keep still long enough to connect to his core, which, according to Uncle Peter, was what he would have to do before his form would show itself. He was kind of upset at that, but Uncle Peter told him that there was no hurry on this step; he could meditate every day if he had to, and eventually it would come.

The seventh time he tried it, he got a sort of blobby dark shape, but nothing more concrete. Uncle Peter, however, was quite proud of him (or at least he said so) because not very many witches and wizards Harry's age even had the patience for the mandrake thing, never mind this. Harry wasn't so happy with his own success, but figured that he would figure it out in time.

"What if I have _no_ animagus form?" he'd asked nervously one morning, after yet another vision of an amorphous black mass. "What if I never see anything but blobs?"

"You will. Almost every witch or wizard has a form, and if they did not have any at all, they would simply not ever see anything when they try to meditate. The fact that you saw anything at all means that you have a form; it's just a question of how much work you're willing to put in and how long it will take naturally for your form to manifest."

"Man-e-fest?"

"Appear," Uncle Peter defined, smiling at him. "C'mon, Prongslet, you're going to be fine. Your dad became an animagus in two years, which is unheard of, and he was a lot older and didn't have any help."

That did not reassure Harry. "You mean it could take _years_? I want to know what I'm going to be _now_!"

"Well, you'll probably know in a few weeks, if you keep the meditation up. It's just that the transformation will take longer to achieve. But let's not think about that right now, it's time for breakfast."

Harry nodded just the slightest bit sulkily.

As it turned out, Harry had partially figured out what his form was the next evening. "It has fur," he said, relating it to Uncle Peter. "It has fur and big paws, and it has whiskers, but otherwise it's just all blurry."

Uncle Peter high-fived him. "It has to be some sort of cat or dog then," he said thoughtfully. "Huh. What else is black and furry and has big paws? Maybe a niffler...?"

"I don't know. I'm bigger than a cat or niffler, so maybe some sort of big dog?"

Uncle Peter stiffened, and Harry knew that he was thinking of Padfoot, so he changed the subject with a hurried: "So what happens when I figure out what I'm going to be?"

"You'll have to go through a period of slow transfigurations. I have to do most of it, since it requires a wand, but it will be your core and your will power that actually drives the transformation, so if you need me to stop at any point, I will. When we've gone through all the gradual transfigurations, you'll fully be whatever form you are. Then you will have to put all your focus on turning back. Once you can go back and forth without any problems, you will be able to do it on your own."

Harry nodded, grinning.

"But for now, you just have to focus on figuring out what you're going to be. And for right now, you're going to be having some dinner."

Harry sighed, but knew better than to argue with Uncle Peter, and so they went out and got takeout, the Dursleys having returned from their trip the night before. Neither Harry and his uncle nor the Dursleys wanted to eat in the same general vicinity.

Over the next few days, Harry meditated every morning and evening, trying hard to figure out his animagus form. And at last, one particularly stifling afternoon when there was nothing better to do, Harry sat down on his heels to practice his meditation. Slowly, the world blurred and became indistinct, but Harry didn't move, only sat on his now-burning heels, staring at a checkmark of marker on the wall from where Dudley had scrawled all over it years ago, keeping himself centered. And then, amidst the blurry haze that he had let himself sink into, he became aware that he was no longer on his heels. Instead, he was sitting in the center of his room (what had once been Dudley's playroom, and might be again as soon as Uncle Peter could legally take him away from this place) on his haunches, a long, velvety black _something_ \- was that a tail? He had a tail!- twitching in the corner of his eye. In his vision, there was a mirror-like substance on the floor, like water or liquid silver, he could see his face, whiskered and cat-like, with great, luminous green eyes and a silvery mark almost like his scar on the feline forehead. And that was when he was broken out of his trance by the sound of a door slamming, and then Dudley's loud and extremely annoying whining filled the whole house, even reverberating in the hot air ducts and coming out of the vents as though through speakers.

The illusion was over, but it had been enough for him to see what he was going to become. His form was going to be that of a panther.

As it turned out, it took Harry only three months to attain his animagus form, much to Uncle Peter's unfeigned astonishment. The transfigurations were tedious and even rather painful (Peter had to transfigure each one of his body parts, starting with the hands and feet, and since Harry was not doing the transfiguration himself, apparently the risk of not being able to change back without help was apparently much greater), but once Harry was fully a panther for the first time, he didn't find it at all difficult to turn back, and (after another full transfiguration and a week-long potions regimen) he found that later back and forth attempts did not cause any problems at all.

Not to mention that it was so much fun being transformed. Even though he was only a cub (Uncle Peter told him that he wouldn't be able to turn into a grown-up panther until he, himself was grown up; apparently it was like that with everyone, and even his dad had been mercilessly teased by the other Marauders when his form took shape the first time with a few dull fawn-spots left and antlers that were still covered with juvenile velvet) he could still have fun running around under a disillusionment spell that his uncle always made sure to cast on him, and his senses in his animal form were so much sharper! He also had quite a lot of fun invisibly terrifying his horrible old aunt Marge's horrible old bulldog which had always used to snap and him and try to bite him when Uncle Peter (usually in his 'Admiral' form) couldn't get to him fast enough. Even the neighbors, (who had been told that Harry was an evil delinquent, which had been born out by his ripped clothes, hand-me-down old leather jacket from Uncle Vernon's brother, as his evil uncle wouldn't have been caught dead wearing leather, so he'd said 'why not make the freak wear it?', although now that he was wearing decent clothes most of the time, the rumors had died down a little) had often used to call the RSPCA or animal control on the creature for violence.

Nor was Ripper the only one who had hurt him that he now tormented in animagus form. One time that Uncle Peter had got him a box of discount books, he had read a copy of one of the Calvin and Hobbes books, and decided that, although he was a panther and not a tiger, the prospect of jumpscaring the Dursleys in his animagus form was too good to waste. So far he had: hidden in the closet and jumped out when Dudley went to put something up, hidden in the bushes just outside the door, lurked behind the sofa, and hid in the master bedroom, and he'd only stopped when Dudley had managed to catch him in the eye with his air rifle, incidentally making Uncle Peter go ballistic and giving Harry one nearly blind eye, which, despite having been cured by a potion made for such instances (bought of the black market from a slightly more reputable Healer who would not ask questions) was still milky and clouded and, although Harry could see out of it, it was much, much more sensitive than his other.

And then came the day that Harry's Hogwarts letter arrived.


End file.
